Leap Frog
by axleonex
Summary: Series of one shots. A girl moves in from her childhood while reminiscing on how much she'd grown.
1. Chapter 1

Kids can be cruel. Not enough people knew that.

Crystal's normally olive skin tone seemed devoid of color. A pile of dead frogs rubbing against her skin. Their slime secreted down her school uniform. The stench was like breathing in mucus. Azul opened the locker, discovering Crystal there frozen with her eyes wide in terror.

Crystal's orange hair was stuck together with frog slime. Several frogs jumped out at Azul's feet when she opened the locker. Frogs were bleeding dead around her feet, she had crushed a few when she was initially shoved in there, causing her to freeze in shock out of fear of squishing more.

Azul swallowed. She'd never met this girl before. All the knew was that they were both in the same fifth grade class. Azul's skin was completely blue, with sharp ears giving her the impression of being a salammander faunus. Unsure what to say, Azul asked, "hey, are you okay?"

Crystal took a step out of the locker. Her lips trembled and her body shock uncontrollably. Both girls noticed the vomit on her skirt. Incoherent noises came out of her mouth as her eyes finally began to burst out with water.

She dropped out from the locker. Azul caught her, and they both fell to the floor. Crystal cried and screamed as Azul held her tightly in her arms. Neither of them fully understood how she ended up in there, but at that moment, they both knew that they needed each other for a single moment.

XXX

Azul approached the playground determined to meet the perpetrators.

"Hey!" Azul yelled, "what the hell is wrong with you guys!?"

On the monkey bars, three kids twice her size looked down at her. All of them dropped down to meet with the blue-skinned girl. They were 13 years old, making them three years older than Azul and Crystal. Two of the boys had cat ears that were common among their school, but the biggest boy had lion's fur on his arms, matching his leadership role among the trio.

"What's wrong with us?" The leader asked, "what's wrong with you? Why'd you let her out? That bitch should've died in there."

Azul pounced at the boy, which was ironic, considering that she was an amphibian fauna trying to attack a lion fauna. This lion boy quickly dodged and pushed Azul on the ground. He stepped on her back to make sure she wouldn't rise back up.

"You hurt her!" Azul yelled from the ground. "She was nice, and you hurt her!"

"You think I fucking care that she's nice?" The boy growled, either out of instinct or out of grown habit. "Crystal is as bad as all those other flat heads. The only things they do is try to ruin life for the rest of us. They don't care about us, they only want to hurt us. Why the fuck shouldn't we hurt them back?"

The other two boys began kicking Azul while from the ground. They kicked at her face and ribs to prevent her from talking.

"And what the fuck is wrong with you?" The lion-boy continued. "You're a fauna, you're supposed to be on our side. You're supposed to hate flat-heads like her, instead, you came here pissed at _us_? What kind of fake fauna are you?"

"Maybe she's not even a fauna," one of his followers said. "We should rip her ears off, if she likes flat heads so much."

The lion boy began twisting at Azul's ears, "does that sound good to you, flat-head? Do you wanna be one of them?"

Azul screeched out in pain. As he twisted further, she began to wonder if it would bleed out. "No" Azul said, referring more to the pain.

The boy took his foot off of her, and his followers backed away. The lion-boy spoke to her again, looking directly into her eyes, "I want you to remember something. Flat-heads will always hate Fauna, and Fauna can only trust each other. People like Crystal hate us, even if its secretly. She deserved that because they're all the same. Remember that, they all hate us and can't be trusted no matter what. Never side with a Flat-head."

Azul grabbed at her ears, she was hearing a ringing from the boy's twisting. She didn't answer him, and was forced to lay on the dirt idly as the three bullies proudly walked away.

XXX

Five years later:

"Hello Shade academy!" Azul yelled raising up her blue arms up in pride. "We finally made it baby!"

Crystal followed behind her. She sighed as she adjusted her glasses, "why do I get the feeling you'll be spending more time fighting than studying?"

Azul smiled as she scratched her chin, "probably because you're right, four-eyes."

Crystal shook her head, "promise me you'll at least _try_ to study now that you got accepted it here."

Azul stuck her tongue out at her friend. Crystal had been the primary reason as to why she decided to join Shade Academy. "No promises," Azul answered. She wrapped her arm around Crystal and the both of them walked to the academy entrance together, "now that we're here, maybe you'll find a nice nerdy boyfriend for yourself."

"You ship people too easily, you know that Azul?"


	2. Chapter 2

This time it was garbage. Which was better than shit.

"Fish face!" A boy yelled at her.

"Toad sucker!"

"Frog fucker!"

Their name calling, wasn't creative, Azul thought to herself. She was at the back of a restaurant, standing at the edge of a wall, as five children through garage from the dumpster at her face. Rotten fruit and vegetables, nothing enough to hurt her. She recalled something her parents had told her, _sticks and stones may break my bones, but word can never hurt me... Do vegetables count?_

"You're mom shouldn't have had you, you useless faunus!"

Azul took it. She stayed quiet as she waited for them to run out of ammunition. _They can't do this forever._ She told herself. Eventually, one of the boys told the other bullies to stop. He was the leader, well known in the ninth grade class for his athleticism. Black hair and tan skin, he walked up to Azul standing at equal height of her. "You know why you have garbage on your face?"

Azul didn't say anything, fully aware that her words would make it worse. The boy went on, "because you're a fucking animal. You're better off eating from a garbage bin, like a stray."

Azul was adopted. She hated being called a stray. She punched him in the face. The boy immediately stepped back and screamed, "she punched me! she punched me!"

Immediately, a group of adults passed by the alleyway. There were three of them. Two looked to be a married couple. Newly wed with black hair making them look well matched for each other. The third was blonde older man, accompanying them as a friend. They looked at the group of boys bullying Azul. The blonde asked, "did that toad hurt you?"

The punched bully began to cry, "she hurt me."

The three adults glared at Azul, not caring that she was eleven years old. The husband grabbed Azul from the arm, and began dragging her out the restaurant alleyway, "animals like you need to be muzzled and caged."

Azul stayed quiet as the man dragged her off. He yelled, "guardsman! Guardsman! This Faunus girl just attacked this boy!"

The blonde followed behind them, speaking low enough for Azul to hear, "she deserves a shock collar. Needs to be leashed a wild mutt."

The wife softly took the punched bully by the hand, and then followed after Azul and her own husband. Looking back, Azul noticed the crying boy grinning from the end result.

XXX

"What did I tell you!?" Azul's foster mother hit her across the face. She was home again, but not safe in her own bedroom. Her mom grabbed a leather belt and began hitting her at the sides. "Never cause trouble. Always keep your head down. Don't even think of touching a non-faunus!"

"They were throwing trash at me!" Azul cried out. The belt hurt, but it wasn't the worse kind of pain she'd felt. At home, at least she could speak freely.

"Then let them throw trash!" Her mom retorted. "I've told you again and again, never hit them back! If they treat you like dirt, you take it! Never give them reason to attack you, they already have enough reason as is!"

The beating only lasted five minutes. The words hurt Azul more than anything else.

XXX

That same night, Azul walked out of her bedroom, and headed to the roof. She laid up there for fifteen minutes before her friend joined her. Crystal layed to her side, "I heard you gave Charleton a bruise," Crystal commented. Half smirking, Crystal asked, "was it worth it?"

"No it wasn't," Azul replied. "They're going to press charges against my dad. They said I caused him 'psychological' damage. Now we owe his family reparations."

Crystal clenched her fists. Nothing she said could make things better. Instead, Azul said, "have you noticed that the moon has always been the same?"

It was cracked, scattered across the sky like broken glass. Azul continued, "its like, everyone has seen the same moon. Everyone. it doesn't matter what part of the planet we're from, what year it is, it doesn't matter whether its now or a hundred years ago. We've all seen the same moon, no matter what. Its always the same, exactly the same now as it was back then... Isn't that cool?"

Crystal let out a long breathe, "yeah, that's pretty cool."

XXX

Five years later

"He's cute for you," Azul whispered to Crystal in the library. They sat across from each other on one of the studying tables. Azul pointed to various boys in the library for Crystal to see. "Or him... Or him.. Or that guy... The librarian is pretty good looking too."

"You are trying, far too hard," Crystal commented, not staring away from her book. When Crystal finally did look up, she noticed that Azul was specifically picking out people with glasses. "Wait, are you assuming all people with glasses are bookworms like me?"

"Um..." Azul let the sentence hang.

"That is so racist."

"Wait, glasses isn't a race."

"It's still prejudiced."

"Is it racist if I hate all the races equally?"

Crystal squinted at her friend. She replied, "yes."

"Oh damn, and here I thought that made me a fair opportunist racist."

Crystal's face scrunched from Azul's absurdity. Ignoring their own conversation, Azul pointed to another cute boy with glasses. "What about that guy?"


End file.
